Contents

The Bulwark is an unlockable Rockman ship in FTL. It relies on missiles to fight enemy ships. It starts with the Rock Plating augmentation which gives it a 15% chance to ignore hull damage every time it is damaged (system damage is still applied). The Bulwark starts with a crew of three Rockmen, an Artemis Missile Launcher and a Hull Missile Launcher.

Unlocking the Bulwark can be achieved by reaching the Rockman Homeworlds sector. One of the nodes will have a conversation event, mocking your mission. Respond with the option ending in '...or die trying!' which will give the player a quest marker. At the quest marker, you will be forced to wait in a 'close to sun' node. Your objective is to survive until the Rockman ship FTL jumps away, giving you a second quest marker. Go there and the ship will be unlocked.

At first glance, this is potentially a very durable ship. It can lend itself to simple high damage, weapon focused strategies, but the startup costs can be quite prohibitive, due to the 6 scrap cost of each missile.
The Bulwark has a ridiculous 'all-out' offensive capability, as long as all your missiles hit, and the ability to deal 4 damage per hull missile makes short work of most early encounters.
It may be advisable to ignore early special systems (unless hunting the type B) in favour of a non-resource weapon to offset the heavy reliance on missiles. Ion weapons, at least at first, would be dangerous without backup from a non-resource weapon, because fighting for an extended period is less than advisable with this ship. Defensibly, you are set up for it, but not offensively.

Either don't bother with drones, or invest in just enough for a defense drone.

If you find a Hull Repair drone, definitely consider getting a drone bay. This ship will benefit immensely from it.

Given how much of a tank this ship can be, it would be wise to favour shield, engine and weapon upgrades over others.

Your crew are slow, so place them well and consider hiring a roaming repair Engi.

Consider placing a crew member in the engines instead of shields. The level 1 shield will affect only one shot, but the dodge chance is applied to all of them, not to mention your 15% chance to not take damage.

Consider the enemy loadout carefully before combat, if they lack missiles and have empty rooms, it may be worth using just the hull missile to conserve ammo.

Zoltan, Engi, and Rockman ships are often more trouble to kill than they're worth early game.

Is it warm in here? is unlocked by having your crew kill an enemy in a burning room. If you find fire bombs or a fire beam, save it until your away team are about to kill someone in a room, then fire it to set them on fire. The enemy will attempt to run at low health if the room is on fire, so plan accordingly. The easiest way is to get to the Rebel Flagship, set one of the weapons rooms on fire, then teleport a boarding party in and let them loose; since the weapon rooms are in sealed-off compartments, the enemy crew will have nowhere to run.

Defense Drones Don't Do D'anything! is unlocked by destroying an enemy vessel that has a Defense drone active using only missiles. If you can find an early Rebel Rigger that has a beam weapon and defense drone, wait until your missiles are both charged and fire both at once, ensuring that one gets through. Keep doing this until the ship is dead.

Ancestry is unlocked by finding the secret sector with the Rock Cruiser.